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To most people, the Chinese New Year equals
colourful parades and amazing fireworks, but at year-end construction workers
in China are above all concerned about the question: ‘do I get paid this year’?

Thousands don’t. Hundreds of thousands receive something
not even close to the promised salary. Wage arrears protests have been booming
in the months leading up to the New Year on 16 February. Far from every protest
gets violent, but when they do, losses are bigger than just the annual pay. Many
bloggers show photos of workers
beaten to a pulp.

Attacks on employers happen too, although less
commonly, such as when the 31-year-old construction worker Cato stabbed his employer in an argument about his pay in November 2017.
Multiple cases of worker suicides and employer homicides are registered each
year, and a local court counted 18 murders related to wage arrears within the
last year in Beijing alone. Approximately 70% took place in the two months before
New Year. Wage arrears and debt have become one of the most common motives in
murder cases according to Beijing Intermediate Court no. 3.

Living on IOUs

Wage arrears in the construction sector account
for over one-third of all protests in China registered and published online by China Labour
Bulletin, a Hong Kong based organisation. Many reports have documented the
massive scale of withheld wages and lack of payment. A 10,000 questionnaire
survey by Little Bird, a Chinese labour NGO, concluded that over 75% of
construction workers received, or expected to receive, salaries less frequent
than half-yearly. Most hoped to get paid eventually by year-end, despite legislation stipulating that salary must be paid on monthly basis.

China’s construction sector accounts for 55
million workers according to official statistics. Rural migrants comprise the
vast majority. Half of all construction workers are estimated to have been
deprived of payment at least once in their lifetime according to Chinese
scholars and labour groups.

“Workers have no
choice but to accept conditions at-hand or get fired and lose months of pay.”

Other exploitations are equally prevalent. Lack of em­ploy­ment contracts is widespread,
and excessive and illegal overtime is abundant. On
countless construction sites, unpaid workers are dependent on employers for
housing and food. Often, migrant workers lack local networks and are
systemically discriminated against when accessing social services and other
support when working on construction sites far away from their rural home
towns. According to International Labour Organisation, such issues are indicators of forced labour.

“Withholding wages contains a substantial
coercive element by itself. In other industries, and countries, such conditions
combined are debated as potential indicators of forced labour”, said Matt
Friedman, the former UN regional manager of anti-trafficking in Asia. “When
your wage is withheld, how much are you then inclined to complain about unpaid
extra work, incorrect registered overtime, poor accommodation let alone the
lack of monthly payments for many months? The risk of getting fired is very
real and then the hope of getting paid eventually is lost for good”.

Stay quiet, or be fired

On a construction site in the Haidan District of
Beijing, Cheng, a foreman, and Gao, an excavator, are part of a work gang from
a rural part of the Henan Province expecting to see their first pay check at
the end of the year. Housed on-site, they work without contracts 9-10 hours a
day, most days a month.

“I know of many who get no pay in months. We just
continue working, hoping to get paid at year-end. Sometimes we don’t, it
happened for me on my last job. I called the boss. He said it would come in
June, but it never did”, said Cheng, who has worked 10 years in construction.

Workers rarely protest, while the construction
is ongoing. Easy to replace and less homogenous compared to workers in
manufacturing, they stick to the promise of payment at New Year or at the end
of the project.

“What can you do? If you complain while work is
ongoing, you get fired and never see any money”, said Chang, a former
construction worker turned activist. Keegan Elmer of China Labour Bulletin agrees: “Construction
workers do not have the same leverage as workers in manufacturing who can tempo­ra­rily
halt the assembly line, inflicting serious losses for employers”.

In bigger cities, labour NGOs are trying to help
construction workers.

“Many who seek our help don’t have a contract to
document their employment relationship. We sec­ret­ly record talks between
workers and their employers to prove it, so workers have documentation to bring
along to local authorities for compensation claims”, said Zhang, a labour NGO
coordi­nator in an outer district of Shenzhen. “They are not easy to help. If they are
not paid at New Year and live on-site, they could hurry on for another job at
another site, especially if their family has debt to repay”.

Most labour NGOs have limited capacity. To many, assisting in wage compen­sation
is a deman­ding task itself. Issues are addressed individually and always after
the damage has been done – such as lack of pay, compensation for overtime,
compensation for workplace injuries – instead of combined as cases of forced
labour. Within the dominating, authoritative discourse such issues are
addressed as labour disputes. But a forced labour perspective could trigger discussions
about meaningful preventive measures instead of compensation actions taking
place retrospectively.

Where is the enforcement?

The government recognises the problem of wage
arrears. Each year, authorities
campaign to collect overdue pay. In the Zhejiang Province alone, £332 million
was recovered for distribution among 258,000 workers in 2016. Yet, many more workers are left without
assistance. Authorities regularly
put forward new measures and deadlines to address the problem, but enforcement
is lacking behind. In 2012, the govern­ment promised to eliminate it by 2015.
Last year, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security announced that wage arrears would be eradicated in 2020.

“Despite improved
labour laws, the practice of withholding wages, unpaid wages and lack of
contracts is still widespread”, said Michael Ma of SACOM. “Many mistrust the
legal system. Together with the lack of independent unions, many workers
believe they are alone and helpless”.

“Many
mistrust the legal system. Together with the lack of independent unions, many
workers believe they are alone and helpless”

The International Labour Organisation is unable to comment as the issue had
never been discussed by the ILO supervisory system in terms of forced labour.
This is because because China has not ratified ILO Forced Labour Convention 29,
though ratification is
discussed. Other UN officials couldn’t comment either as the issue had not been discussed
by the UN Human Rights Council.

“There
are widespread abuses and exploitation practices in China’s construction
sector, many amounting to forced labour and the government should do much more
to address them in a comprehensive way”, said Jakub Sobik, spokesman for
Anti-Slavery International. “The difficulties investigating such issues in
China make it hard to document the extent and forms of forced labour there, so
opening up for scrutiny has to be the first step to addressing these problems”.

It’s not easy, and the Foreign NGO law of January 1, 2017 has not made
it easier. Still, if the UN Sustainable Development Goal on eradicating modern
slavery, including forced labour, is to be taken seriously, then a closer look
into forced labour in China is needed.